Defending conscientious objection
The latest issue of ‘The New Bioethics’ has several interesting articles Photo by JC Gellidon on Unsplash One of the hottest topics in bioethics today is conscientious objection...
Doctors are ‘professionals’ and should leave religion out of it
Medicine has its own rules As if to illustrate Rosamond Rhodes’s thesis (see other BioEdge article), Udo Schuklenk argues, also in the Journal of Medical...
More on conscientious objection
Conscientious objection to procedures like abortion and euthanasia often features in BioEdge. There is a growing consensus that CO has no place in modern medicine....
In defence of conscientious objection
Why not make clinically indicated procedures the benchmark? Photo by Hush Naidoo on Unsplash Over the last few years there has been a vigorous and fascinating debate about...
Australia’s legislative laboratory for euthanasia
After Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland? Perth, capital of Western Australia The Labor-majority Parliament of the Australian state of Victoria passed assisted dying legislation in...
Is ‘reproductive freedom’ a dinosaur?
What happens when private interests trump public necessity? The 20 or so candidates for the Democratic nomination for the 2020 Presential run are hawking different...
Conscientious objection: how much discretionary power should physicians have?
And how should we understand the idea of 'the patient's good'? There has been significant debate about conscientious objection in healthcare in recent years. Some...
New South Wales debates decriminalisation of abortion
A new bill would allow abortion for any reason up to 22 weeks. Politicians in the New South Wales State Parliament are about to commence debate...
Lancet editor calls global health groups ‘ethical cowards’
Fiery words from Richard Horton The activist editor of The Lancet has launched a blistering attack on global health organisations for “ethical cowardice”. Richard Horton...
Is ‘autonomy’ the central issue in the Vincent Lambert debate?
Two British bioethicists at loggerheads One of the central issues in the case of Vincent Lambert, the 42-year-old French nurse who became a quadriplegic living...
A look into a Catholic crystal ball
New head for the National Catholic Bioethics Center Time for a bit of future-casting. The Philadelphia-based National Catholic Bioethics Center has a new head, Dr...
Are executives guilty of murder if their products kill?
Oxford philosopher calls for criminal penalties What is the difference between corporate executives selling dangerous projects like weapons, sugar, tobacco, asbestos, and fossil fuels and...